A New/Old Addition for the Stone House

Project updates and progress reports
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Gothichome
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Re: A New/Old Addition for the Stone House

Post by Gothichome »

Mal, keep an eye out for old home talismans, you just might find a coin under the threshold or shoes stuffed in the mantle ect. Would be interesting to see what else you find. Was that penny deep under the window sill, maybe some talking from the past and giving you date those windows were installed, about 40 years after the cabin was built. Also, what the relationship of the cabin to the area, just stuck on the homestead property, beside a major (or minor) carriageway, ect.?

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Sow's Ear Mal
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Re: A New/Old Addition for the Stone House

Post by Sow's Ear Mal »

Gothichome wrote:Mal, keep an eye out for old home talismans, you just might find a coin under the threshold or shoes stuffed in the mantle ect. Would be interesting to see what else you find. Was that penny deep under the window sill, maybe some talking from the past and giving you date those windows were installed, about 40 years after the cabin was built. Also, what the relationship of the cabin to the area, just stuck on the homestead property, beside a major (or minor) carriageway, ect.?



The house was removed from its original location and set on a concrete pad, so there is little chance of finding much more in the way of purposefully hidden items. It used to have a kitchen addition, but that was demolished when the log house was moved. The barns are long gone, except for the drive-shed, which still stands on the neighbouring lot. We will visit the local pioneer museum later to learn more about the property and the builder. Here are a couple of recent pics. The red colour of the original trim was quite striking even after being hidden under later lath for so long. Snow and cold was keeping us away but there was a rainy warm spell this week so we will be back at it this weekend.
original red door trim under the lath.jpg
original red door trim under the lath.jpg (572.81 KiB) Viewed 1973 times
more snow inside.jpg
more snow inside.jpg (548.69 KiB) Viewed 1973 times

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Gothichome
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Re: A New/Old Addition for the Stone House

Post by Gothichome »

Mal, that is a striking red. How are you lifting those logs, hire a boom truck, Jin pole or plain ordinary brute strength and lots of friends?

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Sow's Ear Mal
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Re: A New/Old Addition for the Stone House

Post by Sow's Ear Mal »

Gothichome wrote:Mal, that is a striking red. How are you lifting those logs, hire a boom truck, Jin pole or plain ordinary brute strength and lots of friends?


Just pure, neanderthal strength, lol...as long as we can do it. ( last time we did this was 15 years ago and I'm feeling my age this time around) It's hubby and I, and our son (he's 27), and his very capable wife. The heaviest logs may require a couple more conscripts. So far so good. Despite the fact that they are cedar, the full logs are still shockingly heavy, and hard to carry over ice- crusted snow. We found some very old newspapers tucked in to stop drafts...earliest is 1855, in remarkable condition. We figure two more days to load all the logs on a rental truck. Then more site clean-up. We noticed that many of the logs had evidence of burning, on the short edges. Not sure if this was part of the de-barking, or they were simply touched by grass fires as they were laid out to dry. No deep damage though.
28500446_10155456267322648_2018836481_o.jpg
28500446_10155456267322648_2018836481_o.jpg (106.37 KiB) Viewed 1949 times

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Willa
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Re: A New/Old Addition for the Stone House

Post by Willa »

Sow's Ear Mal wrote:Just pure, neanderthal strength, lol...as long as we can do it. ( last time we did this was 15 years ago and I'm feeling my age this time around)


Holy Cow, SE Mal ! It sounds amazing, but exhausting. Those look like big hunks of lumber. Plus doing this in winter (which I guess beats 90 degree plus humidity summer days)?

Any local insights from the scrap of 1855 newspaper ?

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Gothichome
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Re: A New/Old Addition for the Stone House

Post by Gothichome »

Mal, they don’t look like Neanderthals. Does look like they can use a beer though. :) Don’t tell your friends about volunteering, just tell them to stop by for said beer, then conscript.

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Re: A New/Old Addition for the Stone House

Post by phil »

lay a 2x12 or a couple of 2x4 ( or what have you) on the ground beside the timber. use a pry bar to lift one end and pry the beam on top of your plank. then lift one end at a time with the pry bar and put a piece of pipe between. use 3 pieces of pipe about a foot or two long. Then you can roll the beam using the pieces of pipe as rollers. move your planks ahead and keep placing the rollers under the front as they become uncovered. this way there is no need to lift it and you can move it with one person.
to steer it simply place your pieces of pipe at an angle and keep rolling.

If you want to lift them, use this technique , you can see-saw your way up without using your back at all.. see this video for what I mean. In the video he has built a "shoring box" but you can simply use two piles of short 2x8 or whatever you have around.

If the object is super heavy and the pipe wants to sink into the wood, then you can place metal plates under and above the roller and you can roll more weight even easier but you won't need that for the beams. some 2' pieces of 2" water pipe will be fine. Keep those pieces of pipe around, and some dunnage and you will find them handy.

with this technique you can lift them with one person and no more than a little pile of short boards to teeter totter it on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K7q20VzwVs

no point having a back injury.. use leverage and these techniques instead. a little time and common sense and you can move most things without hurting yourself.

if you have to lift very high and you are worried about your teeter totter toppling over then use some additional dunnage as a safety mechanism so if it topples it won't have far to fall. you could use a pile of fence posts or whatever you have.

although the video is about stonehenge I think it demonstrates this technique quite well. He is showing how he lifts the concrete beams by himself with just a little ingenuity.
Phil

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Sow's Ear Mal
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Re: A New/Old Addition for the Stone House

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Hey all. Just checking in. We got our drawings from the engineer firm. We will have to go over them with them soon, cuz they spec'd a slab foundation, which we were told wasn't possible attached to a below-frost-line footing full foundation. A few other errors in it, enough to make me want to go over them in their office to make sure all is accurate. Once they're vetted, we're off to the races. The current debate is whether we will be raising log walls before winter. I'm on the Hard No side, lol. Cheers, Mal

ps....It's been slow on The District lately. May I request some renewed activity in reporting? I know I'm hardly the poster child for this, but I like the updates from everywhere. ;)

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Re: A New/Old Addition for the Stone House

Post by Lily left the valley »

Sow's Ear Mal wrote:ps....It's been slow on The District lately. May I request some renewed activity in reporting? I know I'm hardly the poster child for this, but I like the updates from everywhere. ;)
I'm in awe of the physical work you've put in and shared. You mentioning the engineer reminded me that I have a lot on my plate this winter if we have any hope of adding a walipini next year.
Since the snows melted, most of my updates have been on garden related matters. :happy-smileyflower: We figure after we wrap up some fall cleanup and transplant work, we'll be able to focus on house specific work. At first it's still going to be boring stuff like insulation in the attic, because we didn't even finish the first layer last year due to suffering from ourfundswerelow. :lol:
--Proud member of the Industrious Cheapskate Club
--Currently pondering ways to encourage thoughtful restovation and discourage mindless renovation.

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Re: A New/Old Addition for the Stone House

Post by awomanwithahammer »

My updates unfortunately consist of "today I worked on restoring windows," followed closely by "today I worked on window restoration," interspersed with "today I stripped another 4 feet of paint from the garage wall in preparation for sanding, priming and painting." I'm hoping to move on soon, however, as I have just reglazed the very last windows.
Bonnie

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